Player damage system dilemma

[Fat Pug Studio]

Hello guys,

i'm pretty much far off in the game development, but one thing bothers me more and more as i design the enemy attack patterns. In one moment i will have to decide whether i will have a health bar with, for example, 100 HP and enemy bullets dealing 1-100 damage (like jets 'n' guns) or 10 "lives" with every enemy bullet taking one "life" and gives you invincibility for a few seconds (like steredenn).

While the second approach is more hardcore oriented, i found out that it limits me in enemy attack patterns. By having a health bar i can make, for example, machine guns for enemies that spew a lot of small bullets that don't deal much damage. I can't to that in "life" mode, since i couldn't make bullets much small and it would be a bit unfair. Also, by using a health bar, i can enrich the game by adding repair pickups and shield (shield would be a bit op in "life" mode probably).

What do you think? I personally lean towards the health bar model, but besides jets 'n' guns, i don't know many other good design examples.

[TheDogCatcher]

I've been thinking about the same subject for my game over the last few days, in the end I opted for a system where the player has a maximum of 4 lives with a 1 second period of invincibilty if they lose a life, if they pick up an extra life while on max health they get bonus points instead.

I must admit the health bar option is quite an interesting one but it does seem a bit more complex and would probably be a bit harder to balance, ultimately I chose not to go with this because I wanted to keep the core systems of the game fairly simplistic as I thought this would give me more precise control over the game's diffculty level.

In the end I suppose it depends very much on what type of game you are trying to create, a health bar system would be very cool though and if not many other games use one then that would be another plus as it would add to the uniqueness of your game.

[trap15]

Literally the reason health bars are bad is the "benefit" you explain. Impossible-to-dodge patterns are bogus and unfair.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Also, on a more subtle note, I actually prefer the consistency of the "1-bullet, 1-life/damage" because I find it can distract from playing the game to have to check my health bar after every hit and make vague guesses as to how many more shots I can take. Also face-rolling through attacks isn't very satisfying. But I can also see the appeal of not having to worry equally about every single hazard.

To take your machine-gun-spraying example, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you're not making it literally undodgeable: If you're really concerned about making the flak as deadly as the other bullets, I guess you could try having a shield and attack-tier system of sorts that can protect you from a limited amount of flak, but other kinds of bullets just go right through it? And if you want upgrades, then I guess you could upgrade the shield over time to have more durability or even protect from from higher tiers of bullets?

e: I guess kind of an example to bring up is Deathsmiles. You have segmented Life Points where losing them is like dying in most shmups, but you do a reeling animation rather than exploding and respawning. Bullets remove your current Life Point, but enemy collisions only deal half, or potentially less if you change the dip-switch settings. So, in a way, replace "enemy collisions" with machine-gun flak, and that's not too far off from what you're talking about, just without the "potentially being able to take 100 bullets" thing. That might be a bit OD lol

e2: something else to consider might be a shield that you bring up manually. Eschatos has one of these, but when bullets touch it they are fizzled out over time rather than immediately deleted, based on their individual strength value. Really strong bullets can make it through your shield or even push you around.

[BulletMagnet]

Another thing to consider further is what you mentioned about life-based games usually giving you a bit of invincibility and a moment to get your bearings back after getting hit; this setup keeps things fair for the player without slowing down the action too much since you never have more than a couple of lives to spare, but with a lifebar designed to take more punishment you can go in one of several directions, none of them terribly appealing:

1) "Impossible" patterns with no invincibility, which makes it very easy to be "pinned" in rapid succession by multiple attacks and lose a huge chunk of life in seconds, kind of killing the point of the lifebar to begin with

2) "Impossible" patterns with invincibility, which takes you out of the moment on a regular basis and kills the game's flow

3) "Possible" patterns with invincibility, which likely makes the game a good deal easier than you're intending since you can take so many hits before croaking

4) "Possible" patterns without invincibility, keeps the possibility of getting "pinned" (albeit reduced somewhat), but also means that you need to be even more careful to include some means of feedback to make it clear when you're taking damage, since you don't "stop" until you're dead for good

Lifebar shmups aren't totally impossible to succeed at, but the odds are very much against you, and whatever highs you do manage to achieve will come with unavoidable lows attached to them.

[Shepardus]

Lifebars can work (e.g. in Astebreed), but people here don't like it when they're used as a cop-out to avoid having to design solid and fair obstacles. Even if there's a lifebar, "perfection" should still be encouraged and feel attainable, and managing the life/repair system shouldn't distract from the core shooting and dodging action, which is what the niche that still plays the genre is here for. It may feel limiting, but in this genre less is often more.

[mamboFoxtrot]

Oh yeah, something else about invincibility/mercy frames and attacks doing different damage, is that it opens up the possibility of intentionally taking a weak hit to i-frame through a stronger hit. This actually happens in Deathsmiles, where you can run into an enemy to not get killed by a bullet.

An old shmup project I worked on actually did both - normal bullets took a big chunk out of your lifebar (like, 30, out of a 100-point HP bar) and provided i-frames, but flak did 1 HP with no i-frames. So, technically, a huge conga-line of flak could instantly kill you, but I never actually put anything like that in the game

[Shepardus]

You could do something like in Guwange where the lifebar is divided into segments, and there may be no invincibility frames or only a small amount when taking damage within a segment, but when a whole segment is depleted you get a larger invulnerability window. In Guwange the "segments" are essentially traditional lives, but you can lose "part of a life." Games like Halo: CE and at least one of the Mass Effect games have used segmented life meters to indicate at what point damage becomes permanent and can't be regenerated over time (in Halo, this is shield vs. health).

[Perikles]

Lifebar shmups aren't totally impossible to succeed at, but the odds are very much against you, and whatever highs you do manage to achieve will come with unavoidable lows attached to them.

While there are more than enough games (particularly from Western developers) that ostentatiously demonstrate how lifebars can digress into being a careless solution for inherent problems, I still don't think this has to be a general rule. Just to list some games of the top of my head where lifebars/health cells work (and I leave out titles where one could argue that the lifebars are in fact disguised extra lives like e.g. in Avenger, the Battle Manias, Elemental Master, Kidou Soukou Dion and Ryu Jin, although that aspect alone makes such a discussion many-faceted to being with): 1943, 1943 Kai, Area 88, Atomic Robo-Kid, Change Air Blade (sort of), Dangerous Seed, Down Load, Dragon Saber PCE, Dragon Spirit, Forgotten Worlds, both SFC Kiki Kaikais, Koutetsu Teikoku, Magical Chase, Mr. Heli no Daibouken, Override, Phalanx, Phelios, Rabio Lepus (Special), Section Z NES (admittedly a bit weaker implemented here), Twinkle Star Sprites, Undeadline, U.S. Navy, Vapor Trail, Winds of Thunder. I suppose one could mention Metamor Jupiter and Spriggan Mark 2 as near the knuckle, although I find they moreso show deficiencies. Capcom and Namco in particular had a firm hand when crafting shmups with health cells/lifebars, they almost always strike a satisfying balance between leaving a little bit of leeway and putting pressure on the player during tenser moments. Considering that the list of successful shmups with such a system is rather extensive, I don't see why it should be a priori problematic. When you only implement it afterwards in order to veneer underlying flaws with your game, it certainly becomes a liability, indeed. But that's not to say it is necessary or even probable that you can't concatenate the two in a felicitous manner.

[Fat Pug Studio]

First of all, i'd like to thank you all for so many responses and a serious attitude towards my dilemma, you truly are a great community.

I had to google for most of the games you all mentioned, but it was really good to see how some (mainly non-western) developers did their systems.

While not so young and certainly not without experience in games and shmups, i am inexperienced in game design (though i have a great gut sense for good and bad when making something due to gaming experience), so i think it should be better to stick to a simple life system and try to be more creative with enemy bullet patterns, attacks and bullet graphics to provide variety

[Ixmucane2]

Another possible application for a shield system of the sort mamboFoxtrot suggests is offering nasty but not impossible bullet patterns in which the optimal way to dodge includes one or more lesser hits (and, if needed, there's some form of healing afterwards).
Of course, to be interesting such bullet patterns must mislead the player into thinking that dodging everything is possible before realizing it's impossible.

For interplay between small and large hits, consider also shields with a dual recharging and depletion mechanism: the amount of energy they can absorb (i.e. the number of shots of a given size), as usual, but also the highest class of shots they are effective against (hits disrupt shields and if shields are sufficiently disrupted they become completely unable to stop the strongest shots, even if enough shield strength remains). Depending on specific needs, small bullets could reduce shield integrity proportionally more or less than large bullets. This could allow players to choose between assured flak hits or a risk of major hits on different paths, dodge well enough to reach some difficult spot with adequate shields, allow some shield "cooking" in order to shoot a boss, and so on.

[Despatche]

There's nothing really "hardcore" about life stocks. As long as the skill ceiling exists where all patterns can be beaten without having to take damage or use a resource (unless the game is carefully designed around this, as in games like Garegga), you can pick whatever health system you like.

I would like to point out that what the developer wants is very different from the simplistic "successful" lifebars most people are thinking of.

I had to google for most of the games you all mentioned, but it was really good to see how some (mainly non-western) developers did their systems.

Unfortunately, this is exactly how the term "euroshmup" got created. The vast majority of games that use elements like lifebars and shops as an excuse to be lazy with a game's design are made in the west, chiefly in Europe. They're all over computers like the ZX Spectrum, the Commodore 64, the Amiga series, etc.

While not so young and certainly not without experience in games and shmups, i am inexperienced in game design (though i have a great gut sense for good and bad when making something due to gaming experience), so i think it should be better to stick to a simple life system and try to be more creative with enemy bullet patterns, attacks and bullet graphics to provide variety

Good call. Balancing damage dealt to make the rest of skill development more gradual is something very different. It's also very difficult. At a certain point, it seems a lot more "hardcore" than just having lives, at least for the developer...

...who is so much more important than any of their fans, whether they are individuals or a large mass. Please do not ever forget that. If they're asking you to do something unreasonable, or expecting you to always be available to listen to their tiniest of demands, please do not respect them. You do this for fun, and maybe to make a little money from the people who enjoy the same games as you do. Respecting these people only provides a net negative of being hazardous to your health.

[Fat Pug Studio]

Thanks for the advice Despatche. I wasn't planning to cater to anyone anyway, just pondering the design possibilities for the highest fun value, that's why i'm asking the experts

[MsK`]

We got a system in-between : we have a health bar and it loosed 1/3 every time you're hit, making it very close to the feeling of an arcade shmup. But refilling it is pretty slow. This ends up having the best of both worlds I believe. The weird thing is that when you're hit twice, you're at 0.333 life, and if you manage to heal just a little bit, you can be hit another time without loosing the game. To me, this felt a bit like cheating the first time I played the game like that, but I don't mind in the end. It just makes the game more accessible to newcomers.

[Rozyrg]

The two I like personally:

• 1. Like the games Perikles lists, a healthbar as an obfuscated lives system. This is usually paired with making the player really have only one "life", that way you don't end up in the odd threat and tension diminishing scenario where it feels like you take too long to lose or that the game isn't punishing you for your mistakes.
  
  One of my favorite examples is Lords of Thunder, which also has a shop system (another element often done badly in shmups) where you can buy extra hitpoints between stages.
  
  2. Similar to some of the Soldier and Aleste games, getting hit simply takes away powerup levels, meaning you will only die when you are at your weakest. This is balanced around giving the player powerups (or getting back ones they've lost) at a regular interval so they almost always have a chance to mount a defense.

In either case, it needs to be absolutely clear how much you're losing each hit and how many you have left until Game Over.